Brick and Mortar partners? They would usually already have their .com.
Ahm, no. If that was true, i would be out of business.
Many brick-and-mortars are still born outside the digital world even today. Especially local shops that sell within a certain jurisdiction only. And i'm not sure if you already researched how many businesses out there are running off just on Facebook pages only. There are plenty.
If you were a lingerie business owner, at least a serious and smart one, you would realize $9,500 is worth it, because it's easier to do both online and offline marketing, and you would pay more than that amount in lost customers, extra marketing etc. for some novelty extension. It's a competitive world out there, people should take business seriously, don't start off with some big misstep. Those new extensions are going to be foreign to everybody since they're new, and probably will look a little scammy/spammy to a lot of people.
Those are traditional or textbook point of view. I clearly understand those. But just because it is traditional, it doesn't mean you are jailed for life to embrace traditional methods.
I have seen a business grow customers and rake in boatloads of money from social media marketing alone. It didn't cost too much to do it. And they don't have blockbuster domains either.
These novelty extensions can be a Guerrilla Marketing tactic in itself. They are not as cryptic as .BIZ or .NET. I also believe the formula here is, if you want people to take you seriously, you have to dress well. When people go to your domain/website, you should look legit, and sell legit. If they are satisfied with their e-commerce experience with you, your "novelty extension" will eventually look stylish and brandable. And it will become your identity.
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That's why most webdevelopers don't understand the value of premium domain names. They see that they can achieve good results with regfee domain names.
Maybe you are referring to webdevelopers who just write code and design website graphics, with no online marketing background or whatsoever.
Maybe let's just refer to "business developers". The main roadblock to premium domains, is the price. The economics of running a business, is something many domainers do not understand. Domainers just slap a "premium price" on their "premium domains", without making any consideration whether buyers can recover their investment from paying such a hefty price.
But for a large-scale, serious project a poor domain will at some point hurt your credibility and hinder your growth.
Not all reg fees are poor domains. And i am expanding the term "reg fee" here to include the $50-$250 range now.
Normally, dictionary domains that fall in the reg fee category nowadays, are almost certainly garbage material.
But not the "brandable" types. Brandables rarely have buyers, that's why many domainers price them low. And i tell you, not all large-scale serious projects even want to have generic premium domains as a brand. Many of them want their own "Twitter" or "Motorola" branding identity. They don't want to be known as just "Candy" or "Beer".
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